


"It's two sugars, right?"

by stuckwithminusharry



Series: One Hundred Ways To Say I Love You (Hinny) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Harry Potter Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tea, The Burrow (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckwithminusharry/pseuds/stuckwithminusharry
Summary: „It‘s two sugars, right?“Harry snaps out of his spiral. „One‘s fine.“„One‘s your regular.“ He can see her smile, though faintly, even under the sharp kitchen light. „You drink it with two when you‘re upset.“





	"It's two sugars, right?"

**Author's Note:**

> This was at least 30% inspired by the fact that when I was writing it, I was very much freezing my butt off in a Costa while waiting for my best friend to finish her lectures. So Jessie from the past is going to grab a hot chocolate now. Also, this contains some references to a poem you might know, which I‘m pretty excited about, so if that‘s something you dig, keep your eyes peeled. Leave me a comment when you‘ve figured it out!
> 
> Warning for a few words Molly wouldn’t approve of, three straight pages of pure, undiluted self-loathing, and Ron being shamed for his tea preferences when he isn’t even there to defend himself.

_**It’s two sugars, right?** _

 

“Okay. Light’s coming on now.”

The warning helps a little, but Harry still feels himself flinch when the Burrow’s kitchen lamps light up. Ginny squeezes his hand before letting go and quietly walks over to the kitchen counter, bare feet on old wood. Harry slides into the nearest chair and wills his legs to stop shaking while she fills the kettle to the top.

“I can ask Dad about them”, she says, looking back at him over her shoulder. “He can put a Dimming Charm on them, so they don’t come on so fast.”

“It’s no big deal”, mumbles Harry. “I don’t want to bother him.”

“He’d be happy to be bothered about that. It might help, Harry.”

“Really, it’s … fine. I feel bad enough about burdening you with … all this.”

Most nights, when Harry wakes up, he can’t remember how to breathe. He gasps silently into the darkness of Ginny’s bedroom, with tense muscles and bright eyes, and the shadows on her walls grow together like trees over his head, and he’s sure the world is ending – for a few moments, or maybe hours, who knows – nothing and everything is real: the mattress is dead land and opens up under him, and drags him down, head-first, until he’s gone, without ever making a sound, a whimper, nothing more.

But when she does wake up – when it’s so bad he can’t hide it – when he wakes up with a bang – there is a small, shameful part of Harry that breathes a secret sigh of relief. She speaks warm, reassuring words, and strokes his hair, and holds him until he stops shaking.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Just breathe. Shhh. Just breathe.”

So he does. And he can.

But he could never, _ever –_ admit it.

Because when the lights come on, and he looks into Ginny’s red-rimmed, glassy eyes, he wants nothing more than to curl up into himself and disappear. He knows it’s his fault, how tired she looks. And there’s no hiding from the lights: They lay bare exactly how weak, and vulnerable, and pathetic he is.

Ginny tucks a strand of red hair behind a freckled ear. It’s growing past her shoulders again, and falling over her collarbones. Harry still hasn’t gotten used to it: Every time he looks at her, he expects to see the same waist-length shock of hair she sported back in his sixth year, that impossible, sunny summer.

But that is long gone.

„You’re not a burden.“

The kettle behind her starts to whistle – she turns her back to Harry, who is sitting on the other side of the kitchen table and allows himself to shiver as soon as she isn’t looking anymore. He watches her shoulder blades dig through her pyjamas as she works – eager to dedicate every thought in his head to the simple routine of placing tea bags in mugs and pouring steaming water on top, and the way her arms move when she does.

But fuzzy images from his nightmares keep seeping back in, distant and solemn voices, and his chest tightens the more he tries to fight it – and the terribly familiar feeling of struggling to breathe, and being trapped, and then drowning in freezing water, takes hold of him.

„I don‘t want to wake you up, that‘s all…“

„I know.“ She disappears from his sight momentarily when she bends down to grab sugar out of the bottom drawer. It‘s the one that sits in its cabinet at an odd angle, Harry remembers. Probably the result of untamed childhood magic. He‘s not sure whose. „I just wish you would. You’re so … determined to do it all alone, and for no reason.”

When he doesn’t respond, she adds: “I wake you up, too, don’t I?”

Harry doesn’t bother to argue. She knows just as well as he does that if he did, they’d be here every night – that she’s getting better, and he isn’t. It’s bad enough that some nights, she wakes up anyway, finds him shaking and gasping on the mattress next to her. She never says anything, never complains, but he’d be an idiot not to see it’s wearing her out, too.

It’s bad enough she knows her boyfriend is scared of the fucking lights.

Harry shuts his eyes and waits for his body to stop humming – listens to the singing wind, the harsh, icy October rain as it drums on the Burrow’s windows. Five months have passed, and he’s as disoriented as ever: there is no future ahead of him that he can see, and the feeling that he is overstaying his visit creeps up on him almost as frequently as the nightmares do.

„It‘s two sugars, right?“

Harry snaps out of his spiral. „One‘s fine.“

„One‘s your regular.“ He can see her smile, though faintly, even under the sharp kitchen light. „You drink it with two when you‘re upset.“

“I’m not upset.”

He doesn’t even know why he’s trying to pretend anymore. Ginny just looks at him with that odd look of defeat he’s grown to hate so much, because he’s always the one who puts it there.

“I can’t believe you remember that”, he says, when the silence becomes too much to bear. Ginny lets him guide the conversation away from the heaviness without comment.

„Couldn‘t forget if I tried.”

What he doesn’t know is how much comfort a hot tea with two sugars holds for her. How much it meant, to have something so simple and warm to remember him by, when the world around her was falling apart. When there was nothing left of him to hold on to, during all those lonely, dreary months, when she didn‘t know if he was alive – or if anyone would be, when it was over – there was still the way he liked his tea. And that when comfort was needed most, it came with two sugars.

But that part, Ginny – after all a firm and life-long defender of the fact that tea should be enjoyed without sugar – withholds, for now.

„Here.“ She slides into the chair next to him with her own cup of tea, and Harry traces the chipped rim of his own mug with his index finger. Bees and butterflies and bugs, all clearly hand-painted, and clearly by a child, decorate the red porcelain.

„I think Ron did that“, says Ginny, who must have been watching him. “He was maybe five.”

Harry allows himself to smile at the thought.

„And this must be from Charlie“, she says, pushing her own mug around on the wooden table. It‘s pale green – yellow lines flow together to form a map of Europe. The Romania-shaped spot next to her thumb is painted in faded gold. “Got it for us a few years ago.”

“It’s pretty.”

“Hm-hm.” He watches as she closes her eyes over the steaming mug, and his stomach sinks.

“I’m serious, Ginny, you don’t need to stay up for me.”

She grimaces and rubs her eyes. “You’re not the only one who can’t sleep, babe. Not by a long shot. You’re just the only one who insists he couldn’t use some company for the bad nights.”

Harry holds on to his mug until his numb palms burn from the heat. “I’m sorry.”

Ginny sighs. “Look – just let me talk to Dad. Everyone in this house would be happy to help you out. It’s not nearly as embarrassing as you think.”

“I’m shit at asking for help.” His voice is barely audible.

“I know.” There’s a short pause, in which Harry intently watches his tea, willing his cheeks to stop burning; knowing that Ginny hasn’t looked away. “It doesn’t have to be me, if you don’t want.”

Harry opens his mouth, and the seconds stretch. His confession is just a whisper. “I like it when it’s you.”

“Good”, says Ginny. “I make better tea, anyway.”

Harry grins weakly.

“It’s true. Ron drinks his with three sugars, it’s disgusting. And he makes it so strong it could drink  _him._ ”

“Yeah, so it balances out all the sugar.”

“Disgusting, I tell you.”

She’s still smiling at him when he looks around. Tired, and sad, sure, but always smiling. Always there, without ever complaining.

He mouths a  _Thank you,_ and Ginny rubs his arm before resting her hand on his, tracing his knuckles with the tips of her fingers like she always has. “You’re cold”, she says quietly.

Harry shrugs. He forgets about it when she’s around – the way his sweat sticks to the back of his neck, and how the cold air licks his skin when he wakes up, and how his t-shirt clings to his sore body.

“Wanna tell me about it?”

Harry swallows. He’s still looking at her hand, desperate to learn every freckle by heart again, and right now that’s everything he can bear to think about.

“It’s the same”, he whispers. “The forest.”

And though Ginny nods and holds on to his hand, like it’s nothing, he can see her shoulders sag. She knows, just as much as he does, that there’s not much she can do about it. And he hates it just as much as Ginny does.

“I’m sorry”, she says softly. “You don’t deserve to relive it all the time.” She holds his hand a little tighter – and Harry doesn’t look at her, he just stares at his steaming cup of tea, and blinks and blinks and blinks until his eyes stop burning. “But I can keep making tea, if you’d like that. And remind you that you’re going to be okay.”

And that doesn’t make the ghosts go away. It doesn’t wipe Voldemort’s white face from the back his mind – blurrier now, but always there. It doesn’t change the fact that every sudden, bright light takes him right back.

But it makes him feel a little warmer.


End file.
